Stellar Fairies and Demon Dragons
by silver light of dawn
Summary: The war with Alvarez is over, but things still aren't good for Lucy. Still struggling with loneliness and a feeling of disconnect from the guild and especially Natsu after they had all left her behind, she tries to recover herself despite the lingering bitterness.
1. Chapter 7

_Edit: Big freakin' author's note at the end. Rewritten and revamped. Canon up until Acnologia's defeat, but Natsu is still a demon._

Chapter 1

Lucy watched as her fellow guild mates drank and partied throughout the guild hall. Fairy Tail was extra lively that evening celebrating their recent victory against the Alvarez Empire and the dark wizard Zeref. It had been a horribly difficult and drawn out battle, especially after the discovery that Natsu was E.N.D and Zeref was his brother, but they had pulled through in the end. Then they had that horrible battle with Acnologia and barely made it through. At least Fairy Tail wasn't in trouble for the property damages that time.

Lucy had been there when the demon part of Natsu had been awakened, and even served as the catalyst for the transformation, and when Zeref was finally laid to rest. She was even responsible for rewriting the Book of E.N.D. enough to sever the bond that kept Natsu bound to Zeref's life. Natsu had struggled for a while with his new demon abilities, and Lucy was ever so thankful that the demon in him was not a separate entity but another facet of his power. She had worried about him being taken over and possessed by the dreaded demon ever since she had first learned of the possibility when learning of Natsu's true origins.

The blond mage sat by herself at the bar, watching with solemn eyes as Natsu showed off his new demon fire. Some of the guild had taken to calling him the Demon Dragon, a title that frankly had always suited him considering his destructive and sometimes evil personality. She could remember that time during their Nirvana adventure when she and Happy had tried to imagine what Natsu would be like if the device had turned him evil, and neither could see how he would be any different. Most had accepted the fact that Natsu was a demon rather well, except for Master Makarov. The poor old man had burst into tears wailing about property damage and apology letters. Lucy could not blame him for the tears. She could already see her own rent money flying away into nothingness.

But that was the least of her worries at the moment. As she sat there observing, the constant feeling of loneliness that had been present ever since she had first found Natsu's good bye letter welled up once again. Even after being by Natsu's side during the battle with Alvarez and Zeref, even after Fairy Tail's restoration, she still could not shake the feeling. Everyone else had had someone during her time separated from them. Even Natsu had Happy. No one spared her a second thought. Everyone else seemed like they had been happy during that year, and that the guild getting back together was a wonderful bonus to that happiness. No one could possibly relate to Lucy's feelings of abandonment and loss except for maybe Juvia, who had been alone for half of that year without even a note.

Lucy had also not let anyone know about the fate of Aquarius.

She had had a few opportunities to tell them, especially Natsu and Levy, but she had held herself back. When everyone she loved had left her behind without a second thought, her trust in them had left as well. She no longer had such faith in them. Her heart was wounded far too deeply. She also felt like Aquarius's loss would make them pity her and see her as being just as weak and worthless as she often saw herself. That event was her greatest and darkest shame.

At times Natsu would look at her with such a solemn expression that she wondered if he knew how much she was now holding back from him and the rest of the guild. Then he would go back to being his normal, goofy self and try to tickle her or crack jokes, and she would second guess that she had seen such a look at all. In fact, most of the time Natsu behaved so normally that she wondered if any of the previous year had affected him at all. He acted like nothing had ever happened.

She wouldn't lie. It hurt that the year apart didn't bother him like it did her. It made it feel like he didn't miss her like she did him. It also shamed her to admit that it bred so much resentment within her heart towards him. He had had Happy with him the entire time, so he hadn't been alone in his grief like she had been.

Lucy sighed. At the moment, she felt completely disconnected from the rest of the guild. Their high spirits did not have any effect on her mood. She felt a great sense of not belonging, of not fitting in anymore with people who had once felt like close family. It did not help matters any that it seemed like everyone was perfectly content to party without her. No one had come over to talk to her or see why she was off to herself. But to be fair, she wasn't exactly trying from her end, either. The sense of feeling like something 'other' was too strong.

If she didn't belong with Fairy Tail, then where did she belong? If she couldn't trust them, who could she trust?

The answer seemed simple. She belonged no where, and she could trust no one. To trust meant to hurt, and she had hurt enough in her lifetime.

She got up from the bar and made her way through the doors. Plans began forming in her mind.

Natsu happily rough housed with Gray and Gajeel as the rest of the guild celebrated. Everyone had a right to be happy and cut loose after the huge victory they had just won. He could not have been happier at that moment that he was part of such an awesome guild.

The others around him fed off of the radiantly positive energy practically beaming from every pore of his body as everyone ate, drank, and made merry to their hearts content.

Natsu felt like everything was finally coming together now that his family was whole once again and everyone was safe. Nothing had felt right ever since a lonely Lucy had greeted him in Crocus and informed him of the guild's disbanding.

He had known that being left behind had hurt her much more than she was willing to admit, but she could not hide behind her fake smiles around him. He could see the shadows in her eyes, but it had not fully hit home until he had seen her wall. So much work and love had obviously gone into tracking each former guild member's whereabouts that he couldn't help but feel a little of her pain.

That was when he had resolved to put the guild back together. He wanted to make things up to Lucy for leaving her all alone, something he knew that she hated more than anything. After all, wasn't loneliness one of the main reasons why she had run away from home in the first place? He wanted to bring back her real, happy smile again. He was willing to do anything to achieve it.

It hadn't gone as well as he had hoped. Every time he felt like he was making progress to crack the new wall Lucy had built to guard her heart, something would happen to remind both him and her that things were not the way they once were. When they had found Juvia is when he realized just how deep her distrust of him had become, and him acting like a hypocrite over Gray disappearing probably didn't help matters.

It hurt when he saw the wariness in her eyes. The two of them had always had a bond of absolute trust. So much so that she had at one time been willing to jump from a tower because she had so much faith that he would be there to catch her. The pink haired slayer did not think that she would do such a thing with the current situation.

They had not had any time to talk things out, not with searching for the guild and then the war with his brother, but with all the things that had happened to restore the guild, their family, he believed that surely Lucy would be happy again. He hadn't had much of a chance to hang with her since their victory, but he knew that someone would be with her right now. They had all missed her during the year apart, too. Probably she and Levy were gushing over some book or something at one of the far tables well out of the way of the fighting.

At least that's what he thought. He glanced around the guild hall while there was a lull in the brawl he was currently involved in, only to see Levy talking with Cana at a table near the bar. Mirajane was working alongside Lisanna and Kinana to keep up with the slightly greater than usual demand for booze. Erza was speaking with Jellal and the entirety of Crime Sorciere. In fact, Natsu could spot everyone in his beloved guild family except his blond haired partner.

Delivering gut punches to his opponents to knock them out, he ran over to the bar to ask Mira if she had seen Lucy.

"Lucy? Actually, I don't think I have talked to her even once the whole night."

Then he went to Levy and Cana.

"I'm sorry. I haven't talked to Lu tonight. I've been talking to some of the other members to see what they were doing during the year apart, and I figured she would want time with you and the rest of your team."

He kept checking, but quickly realized that while he had been having the time of his life, Lucy had been completely alone. No one had thought to make any effort to include the now solemn Celestial Mage. It dully reminded Natsu of the fact that when the guild disbanded, no one had bothered to take Lucy with them.

Natsu raced from the guild and down the familiar path all the way to Lucy's apartment. He did his usual short climb up to her window and let himself in. He was surprised to find that the room was completely dark, not that it would be a problem for his enhanced eyes.

The demon looked at the bed to find that Lucy was already sound asleep. She had to have been very tired to have gone to bed so much earlier than usual.

This made Natsu relax from the tension that had built up ever since he discovered Lucy missing from the guild. She was fine and safe, and she had apparently just left early because she was tired from all of the previous events. It made him smile knowing that she wasn't still sad after all and that he really had fixed everything for her. He had been worrying over nothing.

Natsu quietly and carefully slipped into the bed with her. He went to sleep quickly with the feeling that all was finally right with his world.

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 _Okay. First off, I would like to thank the many friends I have on this site. Their incredible support and encouragement over the past month is the only reason I'm making my stories publicly available again. ShanaHollows, quite-a-riot, Grizzly98, Morriganfae,_ _HoneyWriter78, FlameDragonHime, and honestly far too many others to list. Some of which I still haven't had a chance to reply much to due to the shear volume of messages/review messages I've received and the limited amount of time I've had to go through them. My job currently has me working up to 16 hours per day, 7 days per week, outdoors in all weather, but that is the nature of my line of work. Sometimes I only have to work a few hours a couple of days per week. I'm currently cleaning up from major flooding. My house and family are fine, we are up on a hill, but other things like fencing and debris are a mess. I'm also situated upstream and didn't suffer like many people downstream, and none of my animals were harmed. It's honestly pretty amazing how fortunate we've been to sustain almost no damage in the worst flood in this area in fifty years, and I'm talking about an area that gets flooding nearly every spring, so calling it a major flood is a big deal._

 _On to the less happy part of this note. I have Asperger's and very high social anxiety. The flood of horrendous messages got to the point that I had more than one anxiety episode at just the sight of a new notification in my email of a new message from this site. It felt like playing Russian Roulette to open them. The common thread among most of the hate filled messages was that they took my dislike of things they like as a personal insult. That is beyond ridiculous. My husband loves motorcycles and I hate them. Oh, no! I must hate my husband. Smh. That's how logical that is. I've stated before that the ONLY reason I come to this fandom is for the nalu pairing, and that's it. I'm ambiguous about literally every other ship as long as nalu is together. I don't care if Laxas is paired with a donkey or Cana is paired with a beer keg and a squirrel. As long as nalu is together, I don't care what ships are present. I've also been accused of being anti-diversity because I don't like threesomes with Natsu and Lucy. Because I have a strong preference for a specific ship, that makes me anti-diversity? By that logic, everyone who likes straight pairings is homophobic or if someone likes a pairing where the couple are both the same race then they are racist. It's ridiculous. Especially with the way my family is. I'm mixed race, my father and step-mother were in an open marriage (which is a huge factor for why I have an aversion to threesomes), there is pretty much every religion and political leaning in us. My dad was a progressive atheist, one of my cousins is Wiccan, my step-mother is Catholic, and I could go on. I literally live diversity._

 _The very worst was the verbal abuse I received from a writer on here that I had deeply respected and admired. The things she said to me were reprehensible, and I honestly considered outing her on what she said. She blocked me on here, but I still have the emails that ff sends you for alerts, and they have the messages. I showed the messages to a few of my friends, and they were horrified that someone with such a clean and kind public image could say such things, especially when she purports to be anti-bullying and claims to never hate on people for different opinions. But I don't have it in me to out her. I'm not mean enough to destroy someone's image, and hurt them like that out of revenge._

 _Anyway, I'm reposting for my friends. If you like, then YAY! That makes me so happy! If you don't, kiss my butt._


	2. Chapter 2

Lucy woke well before the earliest hints of sunrise. Her nerves and determination for change in her life had set her internal alarm clock to its earliest setting. She stirred and felt irritation bloom at the fact that a set of unusually warm and muscular arms were wound tightly around her slim waist. There was no doubt in her mind to whom those arms belonged, and he could not have picked a worse time to sneak into her bed.

"Why is he even here? Did he get drunk and forget the way to his house...again?' This would make the eighth time that had happened since she had known him. How many times could someone forget how to find their own house?

She squirmed and struggled until she was able to free herself form the overheated death trap of his embrace. Honestly, it would probably be easier to escape the coils of a python with how firm his grip could be even when he was in deep sleep. Irritation flared again as she thought of how much more difficult his presence was going to make the plans she had today.

Quietly, she called out Virgo, and proceeded to do what the two of them had discussed the previous night while the dragon slayer lay nearly comatose on her bed. Lucy was forever thankful that drinking alcohol made Natsu sleep so deeply, otherwise what she was about to do would be completely impossible with his enhanced senses.

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Natsu woke up in a lazy haze, his mouth as dry as a desert. The sun beaming in through Lucy's window stabbed through his eyes as painfully as one of Erza's swords. He had definitely had way too much alcohol the night before and was paying the price. Frustrated, he turned over to avoid the overly bright and cheerful sun and to hug up to Lucy a little longer. Cuddles with Lucy always made everything feel better.

Only, she was not in the bed.

Blinking the sleep from his eyes, he sat up quickly ignoring the hangover pain in his head. Lucy normally liked to sleep in after a guild party, so she should not have been up yet.

As he looked around her little apartment, he had to rub his eyes to make sure that he was not, in fact, still dreaming.

However, the image did not change.

Everything except the bed on which he slept was gone. The room was completely bare. All of her pictures, furniture, books, and rugs, it was all gone.

He jumped up, trying and failing to contain his rising panic. He zipped about the room, sniffing and searching for any sort of clue as to what had happened. He checked the bathroom, which was also completely barren. Her closet, also bare. The only thing that was not cleaned out was the refrigerator in the kitchen.

Natsu's heart was racing. It could not be what it looked like, right? He had to have missed something. He tried to remember if Lucy had mentioned anything about moving to a new apartment, but came up blank. In fact, as he tried to remember the last time the two of them had actually had a real conversation or spent any quality time together since his return from his training trip and also came up blank.

His panic was rising, and he did not know what to do. So he did what he always did. He ran to the guild and kicked open the door.

"HEY! Has anybody talked to Lucy lately?"

Confused faces answered him, some still obviously hung over.

"I'm asking again, has anybody talked to Lucy at all? As in, since the end of the battle or even before that?"

This woke the guild members up from their hangovers and drowsiness. Levy's hands flew to her face as she gasped, eyes shining brightly with guilt. Erza dropped her head in shame. Wendy's eyes welled up with tears. Gray clenched his fist in anger at himself.

Natsu stood straight and looked each guild member in the eye before turning his gaze to the floor, both of his own fists balled tightly. He would not get any information on Lucy's disappearance from here.

"So, basically, unless I was talking to her, she was all alone this whole time. Right?" He looked up at them, his glare filled with his signature fire. The guild could feel the heat from his anger rolling off of him in heavy, suffocating waves.

Levy started crying.

"I just assumed she was with you the whole time. I just didn't think..."

Under normal circumstances, Natsu would have felt bad about one of his friends hurting in such a way. Right at that moment, however, he just could not bring himself to feel anything but simmering rage at how Lucy had been ignored. All that time, he had thought she was getting a chance to catch up. He couldn't tell who he was angrier at: the guild for ignoring a beloved member of the guild family, or himself for not noticing sooner.

"Gray, Erza!" He barked in a commanding tone. The two met his eyes, too steeped in their own shame and recollections to protest Natsu's demand. "The two of you are coming with me. We have to find Lucy."

The guild broke out into surprised murmurs at his statement.

"What do you mean by that?" Gray asked. "Isn't she at home?"

Natsu ran his hands through his already ruffled hair in impotent frustration.

"She was last night when I went to her apartment, but when I woke up, she was gone. All of her stuff is gone, too. Every last bit of it."

The murmuring in the background became more alarmed.

"That's why I came here and asked if anybody had talked to her. I hoped that she would have confided in someone, or at least left a clue about wanting to leave or where she might be going. She sure as hell didn't say anything to me about leaving. If she had, she wouldn't have had a chance to leave in the first place."

Anyone could see that Natsu was growing more agitated and impatient the more he spoke. Patience wasn't his strong point even in the best of circumstances and was always much worse if Lucy was involved. He was no longer just standing still, but pacing about like a caged animal. Heat was pouring off of his body in visible waves making the air in the building feel stiflingly hot and almost too thick to breathe. The barely suppressed growl in his voice, and the worry over Lucy's sudden disappearance prevented anyone from making a comment that might draw his ire in their direction.

"I'll go with you, too." Wendy stated, her voice unusually strong. "I can help you track any traces of scent left behind. We will find her and bring her home."

Gray and Erza both stepped up and nodded as well. The team would find their missing member.

The others in the guild began teaming up amongst themselves and making search plans. They were all coordinating a search just like they had done when Loke had gone missing before anyone knew that he was a Celestial Spirit. No stone in Magnolia and the surrounding area would go unturned. Fairy Tail wouldn't let Lucy leave thinking that they had abandoned her.

Natsu, along with the rest of his old team with an uncharacteristically silent Happy flying overhead, ran out of the guild hall to start their own search at Lucy's apartment. The dragon slayer hoped against hope that they would be able to find more clues and be able to follow his blonde partner's trail where ever she had gone.

He did not know what he would do without her.

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 _Well, here is the new chapter two! Thank you to everyone who reviewed. Every single one brightens my day. To The Observer, I'm going in a totally different direction than all of that. I feel that Lucy is already very strong and doesn't need a training arc. In this fix, she didn't leave because of feeling weak, it was because of feeling lonely, which was established in canon to be basically a nightmare for her with her upbringing. I started writing this before it was revealed that Aquarius could be found, but I do plan to add that AND the others finally finding out. With how Massimo did her in the end of the magna, I'm very unsatisfied as well. Total disappointment. The only thing I liked was Lucy using Fairy Sphere. With her forgiving the others, all I can say is that this is set up as a comedy of errors type of situation, and Natsu in particular will need to earn her forgiveness. He thought he was more clear on things... and I can't say more without giving away plot points. You can see several hints in my sequel story to this, The Test. Thank you for the compliments as well as critique._


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Lucy had not actually planned out very much beyond simply packing up and leaving the guild. While Natsu had slept dead to the world, she had Virgo, Loke, and Taurus quickly pack up all of her worldly possessions and store them in the Celestial Spirit realm until she could find herself a new home and figure out what her plans were. She, finally, severed her last tie to Fairy Tail by erasing her once beloved pink guild mark from her hand. It hurt her heart to do it. It was, in fact, one of the most painful things that she had done in her entire life. That mark had been her only connection to Fairy Tail while the guild had been disbanded, and she had been completely alone. However, erasing it gave her a sense of closure that she had not even realized she needed. It gave finality to a chapter in her life that she had obviously clung to far too strongly.

Fairy Tail was no longer her home. No longer her family.

After erasing the mark, Lucy boarded the first train out of Magnolia. She neither knew nor cared where the train was heading; she just knew that she needed to leave that town far behind. A restlessness had grown inside of her, and she wanted to see where it would take her. While everyone else in the guild had set out and spread their wings, she had mostly stayed on a roost, waiting all alone for the others to return. Now it was her turn to find herself and have her own adventure.

She stayed on the train for the entire day, just silently thinking as the powerful machine chugged along down the tracks. It made very few stops along the way, so she was able to think mostly uninterrupted. No other passengers attempted to make conversation, possibly sensing the heavy atmosphere that clung to her body as tightly as her usual outfits. It gave her plenty of opportunity to get her thoughts together and come up with an idea of what she wanted to do.

She remembered the conversation she had briefly with Aquarius after Brandish had tried to kill her came to mind. She had originally had it in mind to go searching for Aquarius's key with her team after the war, but that just wasn't meant to be. Now she had a goal in mind for her first solo quest. She had no idea how hard it would be, or if it would be hard at all. Aquarius, being her usual taciturn and 'tough love' self, had given no clues at all to her key's location, but that didn't mean that her other Celestial Spirits couldn't help.

Having a goal in mind helped pull her our of her funk a little. It gave her something else to focus on.

It was well after sundown when the conductor of the train finally gave the call for last stop. Lucy gathered her purse and small bag and disembarked as soon as the train reached the station. The first thing she did was try to figure out exactly where she was. She knew she had traveled quite a distance away from Magnolia; she just wasn't certain which direction she had gone.

A quick chat with the station manager revealed that she had arrived at Basil Town, an obscure and tiny village on the opposite side of the capital city of Crocus from Magnolia and west of Oak Town. She was almost literally on the opposite side of the country from Fairy Tail.  
Lucy wasted no time getting a room for herself in the small but cozy local inn. It was completely dark out at this point, and she did not feel like dealing with any bandits or the like. It was not that she thought she was incapable of taking them out; it was that she just did not feel like going through the hassle at the moment. Bandits always ended up being so annoying, and she was too emotionally drained from recent events and too physically drained from the long train ride.

She relaxed in a nice, nearly scalding hot bath in her room's surprisingly deep tub and let her troubles melt away into the water. Or tried to, at least. Her mind could not help but wander to her former guild mates. She could not help but think of what sort of reaction Natsu might have had once he woke to find all of her stuff missing.

Lucy shook her head to dismiss that train of thought. Natsu Dragneel was one of the most oblivious people she had ever met in her entire lifetime, and he had become even worse after what had happened with Igneel during the war with Tartarus. Before that, Natsu would have easily seen her pain from Aquarius, and he would have asked questions about what had happened while he and the rest of the guild had been trapped in that Allegria mess. Natsu's grief from losing Igneel had separated his heart from hers, and she was finally coming to terms with that fact. She knew that his dragon father's loss had hurt him, especially since finding him again had been Natsu's life goal, but wasn't Natsu one of the ones in the guild preaching the loudest about not baring your pain alone? He had lectured several of the others over that in the time she had been in the guild, but when it came time for him to share his own pain, he turned out to be a hypocrite.

It was doubtful that he had noticed much other than the fact that she was not in the bed, if he even noticed that much. He had more than likely woke up, ate everything in her fridge, and headed straight to the guild.

The Celestial mage was absolutely certain that it would be quite some time before anyone even noticed her absence.  
Having had enough of her own dark thoughts for the night, Lucy quickly got out of the tub, got dressed, and hopped into the soft embrace of the bed. She fell asleep hoping and praying that the next day would bring less pain and a new beginning.

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It had only been one whole day, and Natsu already felt like his mind was coming apart at the seams. He and the others in the guild had searched every single inch of Magnolia and the surrounding countryside before getting a tip from a railway worker that had seen a blonde matching Lucy's description get on an early train that morning. It was either a stroke of blind luck, or it was fate, but the worker had actually remembered the train's destination. Even better, he had known that the train only had two stops between Magnolia and a little town called Basil at the end of the line. On the down side, the next train heading that way would not be leaving until early in the morning. That would mean that Lucy would have that much of a head start. Wendy decided to stay behind, but Gray and Erza would meet with him to catch the next train out.

Anyone could see that Natsu was a wreck, including himself. He knew that he was snapping at everyone and that he was pushing them too hard, but he could not help it. He hated being separated from Lucy like this, not knowing where she was or if she was okay. The only reason he hadn't worried much about her during his year away and why he hadn't gone to pieces like he was doing right that minute from being separated from the person he was closest to besides Happy, was that he had thought she was safe and happy with their friends at the guild. He thought that she would be taking jobs with Levy or the remainder of their team while patiently waiting for his return. If he had thought for even a second that she had been all alone, he would have come straight back no matter how badly he had needed that training time.

It kept running through his mind over and over again. What if something had happened to Lucy during that time? What if she had been in an accident, or if an enemy had risen up like Tartarus? Then no one, himself included, would have even known she had died.

Natsu shook his head as he headed back to his run down little house, Happy still flying silently next to him. The dragon slayer did not want to dwell too much on the past at the moment. He needed to focus on finding Lucy, then he could work on putting the pieces of their relationship back together. He had been so blind and so foolish to have believed that everything was okay between them after so much had happened. He should have talked to her. All of this could have been resolved if he had just talked to her.

"Natsu?"

Natsu raised his dulled eyes to his little blue partner.

"Yeah, Happy?"

"If we find Lucy, do you think we'll be able to convince her to come back at all?" Tears welled up in the little cat's huge eyes. "She's so mad at us that she left. She didn't even yell at us. What if she never wants to see us again? I don't want to lose Lucy forever!"

Happy dove into Natsu's waiting arms, sobbing so loudly that the pink haired young man vaguely wondered if Lucy could hear the exceed's cries from where ever she had gone. Natsu hugged his partner close, almost afraid that if he relaxed his grip that he would lose Happy just like he had lost everyone else important to him. Although, if he were honest, the disappearance of Lucy had an extra dose of pain with it because he knew he had a major hand in driving her away. He had been stupid, careless, and it had cost him dearly.

"I don't know, Happy. I wish I could tell you something better than that, but I can't. We screwed up. Lucy hates being alone more than anything else, and what did I do? Left her alone."

"It's not just your fault. I should have talked to her before we left. She had already seemed so sad even before we left, but I kept getting distracted trying to spend as much time with Carla as I could."

Natsu stiffened, noticing something that Happy had said.

"What do you mean by that? She was sad before we left?"

Happy nodded. His tears were temporarily dried by Natsu's tone of voice.

"Yeah. I thought it was strange, because everyone else was so happy. Even you acted happier than Lucy did."

Natsu took a moment to digest what Happy had said. It didn't make a single bit of sense for Lucy to be so down after Tartarus. He couldn't think of anything that could have happened during the battle that would explain her being depressed. She should have been just as happy as everyone else until he left and the guild was disbanded.

"Can you think of anything that could have happened when we were fighting that could have done that to Lucy?" Natsu asked, his hand raking through his hair in frustration. "I'm tearing my brain up trying to figure it out."

"Nope. We were with her almost the whole time, and there wasn't anything that should have made only Lucy sad." Happy's eyes widened. "I just remembered something! We weren't with her the whole time! Remember when we got trapped in that goop, but Lucy somehow got everybody out?"

"I remember that! I meant to ask how she did it, but I got side tracked with everything with Igneel. I just forgot after that."

"I didn't ask her, either. I forgot about it, too."

Natsu's stomach twisted, and his thoughts raced.

"With how everything else went for Lucy, I don't think anybody asked her. She hasn't exactly offered any info to us since we found her in Crocus, either. Now I really want to know. What happened to her while we were trapped? How did she get us out?"

"You shouldn't be asking 'how' she did it, but 'what' she gave up to do it."

Natsu and Happy turned their heads to see the familiar form of Loke leaned up against one of the many trees on the path to Natsu's house. The lion spirit's face was uncharacteristically cold and emotionless as his eyes pierced the two in front of him. Natsu, however, did not heed the unspoken signals to be cautious and launched himself at Loke. He grabbed the fabric of the spirit's jacket in a tight grip, his own eyes burning with flames akin to Hell's.

"Where is Lucy?" The dragon slayer growled out with inhuman ferocity. In that moment, it was easy to see the demon aspect of the pink haired man that normally slept beneath his cheerful exterior.

Loke, however, was not one to be easily intimidated. Especially when it concerned his dear master.

"So you actually noticed she was gone? I thought it would take much longer than that. A year, perhaps?"

Natsu's growl deepened at the implication. He roughly shoved Loke against the tree.

"Don't fuck with me. Where is she?"

"Why do you even want to know? All of you are just fine without her, and I'm tired of seeing my master cry over the lot of you."

"Of course I want to know!" Natsu roared. "I always want to know where Lucy is. I always want to be beside her! I always want her to be happy. I even brought the guild back together just to make her smile again!"

"Oh? That was for her? It seemed more like it was for you."

"Of course it was for her. I made the plans as soon as I saw her wall at that apartment in Crocus." Natsu couldn't bring himself to call that other place her home. "I thought she was happy again."

Loke sneered into Natsu's face.

"Well, she wasn't. You would have noticed if you had ever gotten your head out of your ass long enough to fucking talk to her! Instead, you were having the time of your life playing around with the other guild members. You abandoned her all over again!"

Something snapped within Natsu.

"I NEVER ABANDONED HER! Not once. I would never do that to her. I even wrote in that will that I was coming right back."

"It was a letter, not a will," Happy quietly corrected.

"That doesn't matter. I still made it clear that I was coming back to her. I care about her too much to ever abandon her."

Loke removed Natsu's hands from his suit.

"Do you, Salamander?"

Natsu was struck by the hatred that laced Loke's tone. He had never heard the spirit speak to a fellow guild member with such a tone.

Loke pushed his glasses farther up the bridge of his nose as he struggled to rein in his temper.

"If you cared about her so much, then you would have been able to see that something was wrong with her before you left. You wallowed so much in your own little world that you didn't notice anything else around you. Then, you selfishly left without actually talking to her. She might have been able to deal with it better if she had had someone to talk to and had a chance to let it all out, but she didn't. Everyone was so wrapped up in themselves that Lucy was unable to do anything but let her pain fester more and more."

"That's something I don't understand. Happy also said that she was upset about something before we left. What could she possibly have been upset about? I can't figure that one out."

"You can't figure it out because she didn't tell anyone. No one bothered asking her what happened when she fought Tartarus by herself, and she's bad about holding things in. Which you should know!" The spirit growled low. "Normally, when something is bothering her, you pester it out of her until she lets it out. That time, you didn't."

"What happened?"

Loke leveled a scathing glare on the pink haired man before him.

"She destroyed Aquarius's key."

Natsu could not contain his sudden intake of air. He knew very well what Lucy's spirits meant to her, and he knew very well what Aquarius in particular meant to her. She had told him many stories about how the water spirit was all she had in the way of a friend for the years after her mother had died. Aquarius was the only thing that made the years of loneliness bearable until she was old enough to inherit Cancer and had run away.

"…Why? Why did she do something like that?"

"To save all of you ungrateful bastards."

Natsu fell to his knees as Loke recounted, in excruciating detail, all of the events of Tartarus that no other Fairy Tail member had been caring enough to learn. By the time the lion was finished, Natsu's eyes were burning from the tears coursing down his cheeks. He had fucked up. He had fucked up perhaps too much to be fixed.

It was no wonder that Lucy was so reserved, so guarded. Her entire guild had cast her aside after she had made such a sacrifice to save them all. Natsu himself had been too selfish to look beyond himself to see that the girl he cared so much for was also grieving just as hard as he had been. Maybe even more. It wasn't like he had been forced to sever his link to Igneel. Igneel had been stolen from him, not destroyed by his own hand, his own decision. He should have been there to shoulder her pain with her. They should have grieved together.

Now he wondered if it was too late.

UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU

 _I'm surprised I had enough time to sign in and post today. I've literally survived two major floods since last posting. Not kidding in the slightest. You can ask ShanaHollows or quite-a-riot. They've been subject to my Facebook being covered in pics, videos, and much whining about Nature's mood swings. Dealing with the flooding and clean up has been exhausting. At least maple season ended yesterday, so I get a few days of reduced hours before I have all of my spring training and meetings. I'm part of several organizations, including holding board positions in some of them, and March is when ALL the meetings and training seminars are, for some God forsaken reason. I'll repost a new chapter of each story plus a brand new post manga one shot before that mess starts. Unless there is a third flood, which is possible. I love living in a temperate rainforest...just not in spring..._


	4. Chapter 4

Natsu could only vaguely register the sound of Happy's sniffling as he tried to fully process all of the information that had been dumped on him so suddenly. Everything he had believed and understood had been completely overturned by Loke's cold revelations. The lion spirit had vanished shortly after, claiming that he had completed his self-appointed task of making Natsu feel and understand a little of Lucy's pain and her reasoning.

And he truly had succeeded. Natsu did not think his heart had ever felt this bad. It was different than the pain of losing Igneel, because he knew deep down that Igneel was already dying regardless of what Acnologia did that day and that there was nothing that Natsu himself could have done to change things. However, the pain from losing Lucy was different, and in ways worse, because he knew he was a direct cause of it. He had failed her in so many ways when all he really wanted was to make her happy and safe. Hurting her was the last thing he ever wanted to do.

He trudged around in a daze, gathering his traveling gear on autopilot. When he met Gray and Erza at the train station to head out to Basil Town, his remaining team mates were immediately able to see that something had happened.

"What's wrong with you, Flame Brain? I would've thought you would be excited about having a lead on where Lucy went?"

"It isn't like you to be so down. Cheer up, we'll find her."

Natsu shook his head, and Happy's lip began to quiver.

"That's not it. I got a visit from Loke when I was on my way home last night."

This statement was met with a flurry of demands from Erza and Gray for more information on Lucy, but Natsu just shook his head again. When the two quieted, Natsu began to tell them all of the heart wrenching details that Loke had dumped on him. He took a small amount of perverse pleasure in the way their eyes widened more and more with horror as he told them everything.

"I never would have thought she had gone through that much," Erza's one real eye watering once Natsu had finished. "The thought that she sacrificed so much to save us. To be honest, I didn't even know that you had gone on a training trip alone. I had assumed that Lucy would be with you when the guild disbanded. I never once actually talked to her before I left."

"Me neither." Gray wasn't holding back tears like Erza, but it was obvious in the tightness of his face that he was feeling just as much pain. "I think that we all assumed that Lucy would be with you, Natsu. None of us thought that she would be alone. Where ever Lucy is, you normally aren't far behind and vice versa."

Natsu sighed as the emotional stress weighed heavily on his body. He knew it wasn't their fault. They would not have been wrong in their assumptions in any other situation.

"It's not like any of you would've known that me and Happy went off by ourselves. Lucy's the only one I told, and even she just got a note. She's made enough backhanded remarks since I found her again to let me know that she's been pissed about it." Natsu sighed again. "I just wasn't thinking clearly at the time. I was so caught up in Igneel that I didn't think about her feelings or if she might be going through something, too. I should have at least talked to her first. She would have understood, and I could have given her some comfort, too. Hell, if I had known the guild would disband, I would've took her with me. It must've looked real bad from her point of view. The guy that was courting her just up and leaves her right before her whole family leaves her. That note apparently wasn't enough to reassure her that I'm still interested."

Gray and Erza stood staring at him for a full minute, mouths open and eyes wide and unblinking.

"What the hell's the matter with you two?"

That was all it took to break his team mates from their trance. Gray was the first to find his voice again.

"Since when have you been courting Lucy? And who even says courting anymore?"

"How dare you date Lucy without telling us!"

Natsu growled low in his throat at his friends and how ridiculous they were being.

"I've been courting Lucy ever since we came back from that mission to save Macao. I made her my partner right after that. And why the hell should I have to tell you all something that was so obvious? You need me to tell you the sky is blue, too? It's not like we hid it."

"Wait, wait," said Gray as he grit his teeth and put his hand to his head. A migraine seemed to be in his near future. "You say that you made it obvious? Exactly what did you do to make it obvious, because I never saw the two of you acting like you were dating."

"Not a hundred percent sure what dating is, but I've made it really obvious that I've been courting her. I have to if I want to keep other guys from thinking she's available, and keeping those fuckers away from her was nearly a full time job until word spead and they finally got the hint. I did everything Igneel told me to do like keeping my arm around her shoulders, put my scent all over her bedding and clothing, showing off my strength, and I lost count of how many times I've saved her life. Seriously, how many times do I have to save her before she loves me?!"

Both Gray and Erza looked as if their souls had left their bodies. It took a few moments for them to reanimate themselves after such an unexpected revelation.

"Natsu," Erza asked surprisingly gently. "Would you briefly explain the process of courting and what it means? I think there has been a misunderstanding."

Natsu gave Erza a look that clearly stated that he felt like she was being weird, but he complied.

"It's simple. When a guy finds a girl that catches his attention, he makes her his partner to keep other males away while he sees if he likes her. If he does like her, he works on earning her love. He does things to impress her, and gives her the nicer pieces of food like how I always save the fatty pieces of meat for Lucy. It can be a short process or a long one, and Igneel said that girls like to make it as hard as possible so that they can see how determined and strong you really are. Lucy sure hasn't made it easy, so I have to agree. She's always making more challenges for me, but as long as the girl doesn't dissolve the partnership, the guy still has a chance. She can disolve the partnership at any time, so you have to stay on your toes. If the guy wins her love, then they become mates." He scratched his head a little. "Well, there's a bit more to it than all that, but that's the basics."

"Are you really this stupid?" Gray asked. His hands were rubbing his head to soothe the oncoming headache. "That's not how it works with humans. Haven't you noticed that?"

"No."

Both Gray and Erza looked at him in surprise.

"In all the time I've been with the guild," Natsu continued. "I've not once actually seen human courting. I've either watched people before they became partners or after they were already mates. I've always missed the in between stuff, like with Alzack and Bisca, and what little I heard just sounded stupid. Miss Anna told us a few stories, but that mostly just showed me what kissing is and that humans call mating marriage. I just figured it couldn't be that much different since Miss Anna never corrected Igneel, and Lucy always went along with it. She never rejected me even once! Always having my favorite foods in her apartment, snubbing other guys to be with me, she was fine with it."

Gray scratched his now bare stomach as he digested Natsu's words.

"I hate to say it, but it makes a lot of sense that the pink haired moron doesn't understand. All of us had the benefit of seeing human interactions before joining Fairy Tail. If the guild was all I had ever known of relationship dynamics, I would be just as confused. We aren't exactly brimming with normal people, and Natsu started out pretty much feral."

"I might be feral, but at least I can keep my pants on."

"Damn it! When did that happen?"

"So, you've been in love with her nearly the entire time that she's been in the guild?" Erza asked, too dumbfounded to scold Gray for his indecent exposure.

"Of course I have." It was easy to see that Natsu was growing impatient from repeating things that he felt should have been common knowledge by that point.

"I hate to break it to you, fire fart, but I doubt Lucy ever knew any of that, even from the beginning."

Natsu tilted his head in confusion.

"What do you mean?"

Gray threw his head back as if silently willing the gods to strike him dead.

"What I mean is that no one, not even Lucy, knew anything about you being in love with her."

"That's not true!"

"Gray's right, Natsu." Erza calmly stated. "There are many times when Lucy would come and visit the rest of us women at Fairy Hills, and she would bemoan the fact that no men acted like they were interested in her. It even made her question her own beauty quite frequently."

Natsu was clearly showing signs of having dealt with too many shocks in too short of a time span. His face was pale and his skin was clammy.

"But…I…we…"

"Natsu, that doesn't mean that she didn't feel the same in return. She also expressed an attraction to you, which any guild member could see. She just didn't know that you felt the same way. To be honest, most of us women tried to discourage her, except for Mirajane, because we didn't know that you had any interest in ever being in a relationship of that level."

"I thought I made it clear to her. No wonder she never accepted me or allowed anything to go any farther. If she didn't even know that I was offering…"

"It's all well and good that you figured this out, but I think you really need to be concentrating on getting her back to the guild before you concern yourself with romance," Erza sternly cautioned.

Gray started laughing as the train to Basil Town pulled into the station.

"Only your dumb ass self would manage to get into a relationship where the other person didn't even know that there was a relationship."

It was a testament to how preoccupied Natsu's mind was with all of the recent events and revelations with Lucy when he simply ignored Gray's barb and boarded the train silently.

Erza, feeling pity for her guildmate's plight, put her arm around his shoulders and gave him one of her trademark crushing hugs. While Natsu whimpered in pain, she stroked his hair reassuringly.

"It will be okay. We'll bring her back, and you can correct your mistake."

Natsu clung to her soothing words, and, giving in to a moment of weakness, burrowed his face into her shoulder. He had always been an undoubtedly physical person, especially when upset. But having her scent so close allowed him to notice something that had escaped him before since it was so subtle.

"Why do you smell weird?"

Gray winced in sympathy as Erza gut punched Natsu and tossed him onto the train seat. At least no one would hear his whining about his motion sickness for a while.

UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU

 _I have been so freakishly busy since last post. The flood water receded all the way, but spring is making a demanding start, so I have a million things to do. The kids have been active, but those stories will be made into new chapters of The Test. I'm so tired, and the horny frogs by my window are so darn loud!_

 _Some notes. The part where Natsu says how many times does he have to save Lucy before she loves him didn't come from me. That actually came from Todd Haberkorn, the English voice of Natsu. He wrote that for a signing for a fan quite a while back. I thought it was adorable._

 _Natsu thinking he's already in a relationship with Lucy is a longstanding headcanon of mine based on how he treats her compared to other girls. With the exception of kissing, sex, etc, he really does act like a goofy boyfriend to her. He seems like he's waiting on her to be more comfortable before doing more, plus his own insecurities. He does know what sex is, and he does know what certain boundaries are. He just doesn't seem to go along with regular society on things, and he has to deal with Lucy's extreme prudishness at the same time._

 _Last note, I actually had to delete one guest review. It was bashing one of my other reviewers who gave me negative but constructive criticism. It is not cool to bash other reviewers. I see it in review sections all the time, and I can't stand it. I am not a writer that likes that. Keep your reviews aimed at my story, not other reviewers. Others attacking reviewers might cause someone with legitimate criticism that would make my story better to not speak up. Unless someone is giving me death threats, please leave them alone._

 _Until next time. I'm going to get my coffee IV installed._


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

The train ride was painfully quiet. Each member of Fairy Tail's strongest team sat nearly motionless as they wrestled with their own thoughts. Natsu was especially quiet. Anyone who knew him knew that he was normally a moaning, whining mess any time he set foot on a train, but this time, he endured with a level of stoicism that would make even Laxus proud. The thoughts in his head were racing so hard that he barely even felt the train's motion.

It was a hard pill to swallow that he had been in a one sided courtship for such a long period of time. It was also a difficult fact to accept that Lucy could have easily been snatched up from him by another man at any given time. She had no courtship ties to him, and she had even been actively looking around for another male to be with. The thought of how close he had been to losing her all of that time made his heart feel like it was being mercilessly squeezed by Erza's armor clad fist.

Looking back, he was happy that his closeness to Lucy had at least kept other men from sniffing around. He had warded off more than a few interested pieces of slime in the time that the two of them had been partners. He was thankful that none of them had made it past him and had a chance to cozy up to his mate. Regardless of what Lucy thought or knew about Natsu's intentions, he  
still felt that connection to her, that love for her, and that dark possessiveness only a dragon could fully understand.

But he was determined to make her understand. He was determined to not let her go. No matter what she thought, and no matter how things seemed to her at that moment, she belonged with him. She belonged with Fairy Tail, and Natsu would make certain that she never doubted that again even if it took him the rest of his life reassuring her.

A stray thought drifted in that perhaps she had been with another man during the year apart. When he had left, he left with the confidence of someone in a secure relationship. He had absolute trust that Lucy wouldn't cheat on him and betray him. The thought didn't even cross his mind. But that was before he knew that she didn't know about the courting. He fought to supress the instinctive growl that clawed its way up his throat. Both the dragon and demon parts of himself screamed in protest of their beloved being involved with another male. What made it worse was the fact that if she had been with another guy, then he would have no right to be angry with her about it. As far as she knew, she was single and well within her rights to seek someone else out. The thought of some guy having his hands on Lucy's body, indulging in Lucy's kisses, or more, made Natsu feel like his heart was being squeezed by Acnologia's ghost.

Whether she had someone else while he was gone or not, he still wanted to be with her if she was willing to accept him. He knew that there had been no one courting when he found her in Crocus, so he would have to take some comfort in the fact that any rivals and past loves of hers were already out of the picture. He just prayed that she would accept him.

The conductor called out that they would soon reach Basil Town. Nerves began to twist the demon dragon's stomach far worse than any sort of transportation had ever been able to do. He had to bite on his own hand to keep from throwing up all of the bile that had risen to his throat. He desperately prayed in his mind, prayed to Igneel where ever dragon afterlife happened to be, that he would be able to catch up to his runaway mate, and that he would be able to hold on to her and never lose her again. He didn't even want to think about the possibility of her completely rejecting him.

And Heaven help whoever decided to stand in his way.

AAAAAAAAAAAA

After several hours of just aimlessly wandering around the town, Lucy came to a not so surprising conclusion. Being alone was painfully boring. The small town was cute and quaint, but it was just so boring without her friends with her. Fairy Tail always knew how to make anything exciting. Natsu was number one on the list of people who could make anything fun. She tried to shake her head to clear it of thoughts going in that direction, but it was futile.

Even when she had been alone in Crocus, a part of her had not given up hope for her partner to come back for her. He had said as much in his paltry little excuse for a farewell letter. A part of her had also held on to the hope that Fairy Tail would get back together. Her old boss, Jason, had made an accurate observation to that fact when he had pointed out the fact that she still had her guild mark.

But this felt different. She was the one who had left this time, and she didn't cling to that small sliver of hope anymore. It made everything so much worse.

The morose mage girl walked over to a small cafe with beautiful open air seating. She had already packed and checked out of the inn she had stayed in, so she had just been walking around trying to relax. The little cafe looked perfect for relaxing. She ordered a small hot chocolate with a little bit of whipped cream. A little warmth in her tummy would do her some good, and no one could truly stay in a bad mood with hot chocolate.

Her order arrived quickly, and Lucy took note of the efficient service, filing the information away for future travels. Keeping note of such places often came in handy, especially for a lone mage. Lucy had learned that trick the hard way in the months that she had been a lone mage before joining Fairy Tail.

She sipped slowly on the warm beverage, letting its heat fill her. Her mind registered the radiant warmth and immediately began to think of Natsu. Sighing, she tried to shake those thought from her head again. It was going to be a long road ahead to heal her heart.

While she sat back, she decided that now was as good a time as any to get started on her quest to find Aquarius's reformed key. The first thing to do was get whatever information she could to get started. For that, she discretely summoned Loke to the table with her. She thought about summoning Crux, but the old cross would draw far too much attention.

"Hello there, beautiful. What can your handsome knight do for you today?"

Lucy's eyes narrowed in her longsuffering exasperation.

"I need you to tell me anything and everything you know about the location of Aquarius's new key."

The new determination on her face made Loke's flirtatious smile become much warmer and more genuine.

"Well, that isn't something that I can help you with, but we both know who could lead you right to it. You've had all the help you need right at your fingertips this whole time."

Lucy gasped and smacked herself on the head.

"I can't believe I didn't think of him before!"

UUUUUUUUUUUUUU

As soon as the train stopped at Basil Town's station, Natsu wasted no time grabbing his bag and racing off into town. It was a testament to the situation that Erza and Gray made no move to stop him or slow him down. Happy flew alongside Natsu, still uncharacteristically quiet for the normally chatty cat. Natsu knew that his little buddy was taking the situation almost as badly as he was. Happy was notorious for teasing their favorite blonde, but it was clear that the Exceed loved her almost as much as Natsu did, just in a different way.

It took Natsu only moments to pick up Lucy's starlight scent. He caught it from the train station followed it like a hound through the town. In his mad rush to find his partner, Natsu managed to knock over two old ladies, break a cabbage stand much to the owner's lament, spook a horse, and cause a fist fight between two brothers. Not that he noticed any of this. His mind was completely locked on Lucy's scent to the point that he barely noticed Happy next to him.

The trail led him to an inn.

He spoke to the inn keeper just as Erza and Gray caught up to him.

"Sorry, son. That girl checked out of here hours ago."

The four of them followed Natsu's nose all around the town. They were getting closer to her because they were missing her by less and less time. By the time they followed her trail to a little cafe, they had just missed her by fifteen minutes.

But their luck was about to run out. The group began to pick up their pace as they realized that the latest leg of Lucy's trail was taking them straight back to the train station.

As they came within Natsu's enhanced sight range of the station platform, the demon could see a certain familiar head of long blonde hair just as she boarded the train.

"LUCY!"

Lucy gave no indication that she had heard him. What was worse was the fact that the train was already pulling out of the station.

"Happy! Let's go!" Natsu knew he still had a chance to catch up with the train, but Happy didn't answer. "Happy?"

Natsu and the others all turned as they ran to see why Happy wasn't responding. None of them expected to see Loke running behind them holding an unconscious Exceed.

"Leave Lucy alone, Natsu." The lion spirit stopped running. the other three unconsciously followed suit.

"What the hell did you do to Happy, you bastard?" Natsu snarled.

"Just a bit of sleep magic. He'll be awake in about an hour." He handed the feline's prone form over to Gray. "I told you that Lucy doesn't need supposed family that will abandon her when things get bad."

Erza and Gray clearly felt affronted by the accusation.

"Loke, we were friends for a long time before you became Lucy's spirit. Do you really think that little of me?" Gray asked through gritted teeth.

Loke sighed and ran his hands over his suit to smooth it.

"No, but I also know that you don't normally just take off like that. Neither Lucy nor I knew anything about your father or the demon slaying magic that you needed to learn how to control until after Fairy Tail reunited. We knew so little about what was going on that we both thought for a while that you really had gone crazy and joined Avatar for real. How would we have known otherwise? We didn't know anything about the demon slayer magic nor your promise to your father. It didn't help that you had abandoned Juvia just like Natsu did to Lucy."

Gray grimaced and hung his head as his shame came back on him. He truly wasn't any better that Natsu. At least Lucy hadn't contracted a serious illness while Natsu was away. He shouldn't have listened to Erza. He should have told Juvia what was going on. She was more than trustworthy enough.

Loke wasn't finished.

"And you, Erza. You are just as bad."

Erza was shaking. Whether is was from anger or shame, none of them could tell.

"I have had many things going on since the war. My mind has been busy. However, I make no excuses for my behavior after Tartaros. I can only hope Lucy will accept my most sincere apologies."

Loke scoffed at the Titania's words.

"Whatever. I need to leave in case Lucy needs me on her quest."

"What quest?" Natsu asked.

"None of your business."

And with that, the spirit was gone in a shower of star dust.

Natsu looked at a troubled Erza, a fuming Gray, and a snoring Happy before heading over to the ticket booth to see if he could get information on where Lucy was heading. This trip wasn't going to be easy.

UUUUUUUUUUUUUUU

 _Updated note: Yay! Two in one day. I had to to de-stress since my youngest caught a wild duck and let it loose in the basement. It could have been worse. At least he hasn't caught another copperhead like last summer._

 _Okay, this is really where this story will diverge from the original. Many previous reviewers stated that they felt the group found Lucy too quickly, and I agree with them. I'm using that constructive criticism to improve this. I'm not going to have it take them a very long time, though. I have a time table of already established events that I need to keep on track. These events happen in my sequel story, The Test. There are a lot of indirect clues to this story in that one, but it isn't as serious as this one._

 _A bit of a misunderstanding, but my last note didn't mean that I'm quitting, just that it's getting more difficult for me to get out chapters with the state of the nalu fandom._

 _Does anyone know who Lucy is going to get to help her? I'm honestly surprised that I haven't seen anyone else come up with this. One of my kids mentioned him when I was talking to my husband about how Lucy could find the key. My oldest said "Why doesn't she ask _" lol_

 _I can't believe how many views this story gets. For the first time, it beat The Test. Each one has had thousands of views since the first of this month._

 _A big thank you to all of my reviewers! My messages aren't working correctly, so I haven't been able to reply to all of you yet, but each and every review means so much to me. I thought about doing chapter previews for certain review numbers. Not sure, though._

 _Last thing before I end this horribly long note, I had an event that will probably lead to another chapter of The Test. I had an infestation of chipmunks in the house. My older two had been catching chipmunks and releasing them in the attic. And the chipmunks liked it up there. And they are Satan's little minions. It was a bit of an adventure getting rid of them. Normal people get rats. I get freaking' chipmunks. Thankfully, my husband's Christmas present to me arrived, a new Saxony style spinning wheel, and I can spin my stress away. When you have a life like mine, you get a deep appreciation for relaxing hobbies like that. It has probably kept me out of prison and/or being institutionalized. Lol_


	6. Chapter 6

Lucy sat back comfortably as the train steadily carried he to her destination. Excitement tingled through her at the knowledge that she would soon have Aquarius's key in her hands again. The mermaid may have been surly and sometimes treated her badly, but Lucy cared so much for her and knew deep down that Aquarius felt the same. Otherwise she would not have told her former key holder that the key had been reformed.

After speaking with Loke at the cafe, Lucy had gone into an alley in order to summon the one best suited to helping her. The ally was best in the interest of descretion. Since there were only three Celestial mages left in existence, it would draw way too much attention if she were to simply summon one of her less human looking spirits in public.

"Open, Gate of the Compass: Pyxis!"

A chiming sound and puff of smoke revealed the excentric appearance of her lesser used spirit. In fact, she hadn't summoned him except in private training since the Grand Magic Games.

The penguin-ish creature squawked happily at being summoned, and Lucy couldn't help but giving him a hug. He was weird looking, but he was too cute for words.

"Pyxis, I need your help with something."

The penguin creature put on an adorably silly serious face and gave her a salute with one of his flippers.

"I need for you to guide me to Aquarius's reformed key. Can you do it?" Lucy had her fingers crossed, praying as hard as she could that her luck wouldn't fail her.

Pyxis gave a happy squawk, and the compass on his head began to spin. It took only moments for it to settle on a direction.

Lucy pulled her map of Fiore from her travel bag and checked the direction Pyxis was giving her against the map.

The location should not have surprised her. It often seemed like everything revolved around there.

"Thanks so much, Pyxis. If you don't mind, I'll be needing you to help me get a more exact location when I get closer."

The spirit gave her another salute before Lucy closed his gate and quickly made her way to the train station. She didn't want to waste even a second more.

And that's how she found herself riding a train to her current destination. It should have come to no surprise that Aquarius's key would be somewhere around Hargeon the small fishing town where she had first met Natsu and Happy. That's where everything began for her. Her life in Fairy Tail. And that's where so many things ended, such as the reign of the dragon king that had caused so much torment and heartache for four hundred years.

"Hey, Princess. How are you feeling?"

It never surprised her anymore when Loke popped up without being summoned anymore. He had done it so much during the year she had been alone. He would feel her pain and come through his gate to help her as much as he could and became her shoulder to cry on. He had become her rock during that time, and she probably would have broken down a lot more if he hadn't been there to help her through the nights of crying or the bouts of anger. His emotional support meant the world to her. She knew that it had, unfortunately, given him a lot of anger towards Fairy Tail, Natsu in particular, and he made no secret of his feelings in private. Lucy hoped that he would one day let go of his grudge. While she felt hurt and abandoned, she didn't feel the same seething rage over it that Loke did. Anger like that tended to hurt the bearer more than those it was directed at, and such anger didn't suit her lion.

"I'm feeling a lot better knowing that the key is so close, and I'll be able to see my precious friend again."

"I'm sure she'll be glad to see you, too, no matter what she says. She's missed you as much as you've missed her.

Lucy felt the warmth of happiness surge through her and gave Loke a smile bigger than any he had seen from her in a long time. The blonde mage felt the warmth increase when he returned a gentle smile of his own. Still, the warmth didn't stop a new wave of thoughts about those she had left behind the day before.

"Even with everything that's happened," Lucy began slowly. "I still can't help thinking of everyone back at the guild." She failed to notice the sudden tension in the Zodiac's shoulders, or the way his hair started to shadow his eyes. "I catch myself thinking about how they would act on this quest, how lively it would be. It's going to take me a long time to completely put all of that behind me.. I made them into my whole life."

"I'm just glad that you are finally taking this step. It was time to move on. I'll never get over how they all went against everything Fairy Tail was supposed to stand for. Natsu turned out to be the worst hypocrite of all."

"Don't be so angry with him," Lucy chided softly, her face turning a gentle melancholy. "I do understand why he did some of what he did, and it's my own fault for thinking that I was as important to him as he is, was, to me. I read too much into his behavior, and mistook general affection, like he has for the rest of the guild, for being special in his eyes. Clearly the one closest to him has always been Happy. I just have to accept that I wasn't as important as I thought I was. Natsu never even apologized."

"I still think you should have confronted him and told him what you went through," Loke griped in a longsuffering tone. It was easy to see that this was a discussion the two had had many times in the past.

Lucy shook her head, her half pigtails bouncing.

"You know why I can't. They would feel bad and try to force themselves to pay attention to me. It wouldn't be genuine. I'm not so lonely and desperate that I need to resort to emotional manipulation."

"So what are your plans for after you find the key?"

Lucy smiled knowing that the subject would thankfully be dropped for the time being. She didn't feel like getting into an argument with her spirit.

"I haven't thought much about it, to be honest. I'll just concentrate on this and see what I feel like doing later."

"Sounds like that should be fine. I hope things go well."

As Loke vanished back through his gate to his world, Lucy smiled quietly to herself. She was happy to still have the love of her spirits.

UUUUUUUUUUUUUUU

Natsu sat in frustration at the Basil Town train station. The man at the ticket booth had informed them that the train Lucy was on was heading all the way to Hargeon with several stops in between. They would need to check the stations at each stop to see if she had disembarked or not and do it before their train left out again if they were to keep close enough to not lose her trail. The worst part for them was the fact that the next train going that route would be leaving five hours after Lucy's. That gave her such a big head start, and Natsu's patience was wearing thin. He didn't like being away from Lucy under the best of circumstances, and this was certainly not the best of circumstances. He handled their year apart only because he thought she was safe and sound surrounded by their family. He was nearly having a nervous breakdown knowing she was out there without anyone else by her side except that man whore, Loke.

He still had respect for the spirit since he was still technically part of the guild and because he was Lucy's magic in physical form, but that didn't take away from the fact that the man mated with anything with a pussy. The things Natsu had smelled on him... It was horrible. The lion positively reeked of all of the women he had slept with. Many of them not exactly the cleanest in the world... Loke being a spirit was probably the only thing that kept him from getting a nasty disease. If spirits could breed with humans, he would have hundreds of kids.

Everyone would probably be surprised to know that Natsu knew enough about sex to know about diseases of that type. Well, you couldn't grow up in Fairy Tail, one of the biggest dens of perverts around, with hearing like his and stay innocent to such topics. While actual emotional relationships were seldom the topic of guild conversation, sex itself and casual sexual relationships came up frequently. He had known what a blow job and condoms were within his first few months of being a member of the guild. The adults were plenty quiet enough that the other kids didn't hear much so young, but they often forgot about his dragon senses. They still often forgot about them. Sometimes he wondered what they would think if they knew he knew exactly who they had all slept with and when. Glancing over at Ezra, he knew that she, at least, would probably mercilessly slaughter him for his knowledge of what she and Jellal had been up to. Knowledge that he honestly did not want to have. Thinking about it made him want to scrub his brain clean. Know one wanted to know those kind of things about someone they looked at as a sister. He also felt slightly bad for Jellal. Natsu had read a few of Ezra's special books. The woman was into some kinky shit.

Natsu glanced over at the rest of his team as they sat on the bench at the station waiting for their train with him. Gray seemed to be doing much better now that he had some time to process the events and Loke's information dump on them. He was calmly playing with his magic as they sat, making miniature ice sculptures. Happy still wasn't doing any better. He sat holding his lunch, a nice trout that Natsu bought for him to try to cheer him up a little, but not eating any of it. The Exceed just stared morosely into space. His guilt at not mentioning Lucy's strange behavior before they had left to train and for not being around her after the war was eating him alive. Natsu wished so badly that he could help his little buddy, but he couldn't even figure out how to deal with his own guilt, let alone someone else's.

Erza was also being amazingly quiet. Normally she would be taking charge and forming plans, but she was being uncharacteristically passive. Natsu didn't know what to do with this Erza.

Natsu went back to his thoughts on all the things that could happen to Lucy while she was away from him. Such intense concern ad worry was not a normal part of his personality. He was well aware of this. He normally had such faith and confidence in his guildmates' abilities to take care of themselves and win that he came off as shockingly call us to many people. He remembered how Simon back at the Tower of Heaven had dropped his jaw to the floor when he had asked Natsu to save Erza, and Natsu had responded with "I don't wanna.". But everything had been different with Lucy from the moment she had saved him when they rescued Macao. It wasn't that he didn't believe in her abilities just as strongly as the rest of the guild. Far from it. He had affirmed so many times that he felt she was a strong mage, like when he told Gajeel that she was tough as nails back during the Fairy Fighting Festival, when he was so confident in her ability to win her match against Flare in the Grand Magic Games, and which she would have won if it wasn't for Raven Tail cheating. In fact, it was a turn on to him to watch her kick ass. He loved the way she looked when she was crushing an opponent into the ground, especially with those new Star Dresses of hers. They looked so sexy and tough at the same time.

But he also couldn't help but want to be her hero and to take down anyone he deemed a serious threat to her. Sometimes he went overboard, but he couldn't help it. It was too much a part of who he was. Whenever he felt like Lucy was in real danger, it kicked the protective part of him into gear. It became so much worse after seeing Future Lucy die right in front of him. He already had so many deep issues with loved ones leaving him, and having that happen made it worse. Igneel's death cemented it all. Natsu wasn't too proud to admit that he was scared half to death of losing her permanently. That was part of why he felt the need to leave and become stronger, so that he would be better able to keep her safe from what sometimes felt like hordes of people trying to kidnap her for her Celestial magic. He had never done it to hurt her, and he had thought that the note, which had been so hard for him to write in his emotionally battered state, would be enough to reassure her that he would be back.

Obviously, she hadn't felt the same.

The entire team's heads jerked up at the sound of the train they had been waiting for pulling into the station. It was time to go get his woman.

UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU

Lucy took a deep breath of the salty sea air of Hargeon. The town was bustling with activity as they worked to rebuild the damage from Acnologia's final rampage. It lifted her downtrodden expression to see the town so determined and so full of life despite the havoc that had been unleashed upon them during the war by the Black Dragon.

Getting out Pyxis's key, she started her search.

UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU

 _Another update, but probably the last one for a while. I've been staying away from this site more, staying completely signed out and not scrolling to look for stories. I refuse to go into any detail about why I want to stay away or even any of my exact emotions on it. I'm going to be burying myself in real life to avoid this site. How pathetic is that? I sat down tonight to write more on one of my stories, and couldn't do it because the things bothering me kept swimming through my head, and I couldn't achieve the mindset I need._

 _And to the "guest" who is harassing me, I know exactly who you are. It's not hard to find these things out. There are ways. You could just say things directly to me, but you blocked me so no one could see the horrible messages you sent me. I am so fed up with you. I'm also fed up with people who support you, although I'm reasonably certain that most people don't know the things you send people that don't like gratsulu, making them feel worthless. They think you're nice, just like I used to. I used to look up to you! You were the first person to ever recommend one of my stories, and I had loved most of yours. I still don't understand why you went out of your way to hurt me like that,and then delete my stories from your favorites! Why you are STILL hurting me like this! I never did anything to you! I still have the email copies of the messages you sent me. Leave me alone, or I'm posting them along with naming and shaming you. That won't look good on you with your public stance on anti bullying. I am absolutely DONE with this._


	7. Chapter seven

Lucy wasted no time in beginning her search for Aquarius's key, but that didn't mean she didn't reminisce while she followed Pyxis's directions through the busy port town. The compass spirit was all too happy to make little detours here and there and listen to Lucy tell him the story behind each memorable location. His excited reactions relaxed her anxiety

They first went by the magic shop she had gone to before hearing those girls squealing about the fake Salamander, Bora. Then they went by that careful spot where she first met Natsu and Happy. They grabbed a quick meal at the restaurant where she had lost a large chunk of her cash feeding her bottomless pit former guild mate.

Fate seemed to be having a good laugh at her expense because Pyxis led her to the next major nostalgic place for her. Hargeon's harbor.

The place where Natsu defeats Bora and dragged her off to the guild of her dreams with an innocent grin and trail of destruction. The place where they set off with Gray on the stolen S Class quest to Galuna Island. The point where Master Mavis had first set foot in Fiore and crossed paths with Zeref. The place where Lucy had used Fairy Sphere to imprison Acnologia's body.

It made some sort of poetic sense for Aquarius to have made her way to a location so intertwined with so many memories.

"Pyxis, can you pinpoint the exact spot for me?"

"Squawk!"

Lucy's eyes narrowed as she looked at where her spirit was pointing.

"Of course. She couldn't make it easy on me, could she?"

Lucy just knew that Aquarius was laughing at her. It was going to be a bit of a challenge retrieving her key from the bottom of the harbor. Good thing she had a cute swim suit.

UUUUUUUUUUUUU

Natsu felt like he was dying. They had been on the train for what felt like forever. For once, he was thankful for Gray being there since the ice mage was the one that quickly and efficiently got off at each station to check for Lucy and got back on. Natsu couldn't get his stomach together fast enough, Erza ended up knocking out whoever she asked about Lucy before they could answer, and Happy was no good at staying focused on his own. Gray was the only viable option.

The downside, of course, was that Natsu had to stay on the train through all of its stops. And he meant all. Lucy hadn't got off at any of the stops on route, so that left only one possibility for her destination. Hargeon.

Being the surprisingly sentimental person that he was, and only the people that had been privy to the collection of keep sakes in his house knew about that fact, it wasn't lost on him how important the little fishing town was to his life.

He had met Lucy there. They had defeated the Black Dragon of the Apocalypse there.

Hopefully, he would get her back there.

UUUUUUUUUUUU

Lucy broke through the surface of the water gasping for air for what felt like the hundredth time. It was hard to stay submerged long enough to look for very long, and she had a lot of territory to cover. She dove back down, missing the bright pink hair of a man running along the beach calling her name with his friends trailing behind.

UUUUUUUUUUUUU

"Are you sure she went this way, Ash Face?"

"Yes! I know her scent goes along this beach, but it just fades away." Natsu's nose twitched wildly trying to capture as much of the scent of the woman he loved as possible. He was so close, he could feel it, and frustration was rising within him at his lack of success.

Sending that Natsu was becoming slightly unstable, as evidenced by the smoke tendrils leaking from his mouth and the heat waves from his hands, Erza decided to step in.

"Maybe taking a dinner break would help you, Natsu. I don't think you've eaten since this began."

"I'm fine! I don't want to waste time and lose Lucy's trail." A deep rumble from within his gullet contradicted his statement. Natsu glared at his stomach in retaliation.

Erza shook her head as Gray let out an amused snicker at Natsu's expense.

"You're obviously not fine," she said. "Let's get some food in you and see if we can make progress afterwards. You know that your senses don't work as well when you're hungry."

Natsu crossed his arms and grumbled about losing time, but followed behind his team mates anyway. They weren't wrong, and there was nothing he could do without a lead or a trail to follow. Getting some food was the best option, and he knew just the place he wanted to go.

UUUUUUUUUUUUU

Lucy's breath was about to give out, but she was determined to make it last as long as possible. She had been on her underwater search for a few hours, and was determined to find that key before it got dark. The sun was already waning, and she didn't want to be separated from Aquarius for even one more day.

Lucy frantically moved aside rocks and recklessly stuck her hand into crevaces. Her twin pig tails whipped back and forth in the ocean currents as she pushed herself to her limits.

She would have had one or two of her spirits out helping her, but she had already exhausted their time and her magic over the previous hours.

Nearly at the limit of her breath and ready to go back to the surface for more air, Lucy turned and spotted a clam she'll out of the corner of her eye. It shouldn't have been anything spectacular, but it was an unusual color. Instead of the normal, drab blacks and browns, it was a blue so dark that it was almost black, and it had gilded finish the the barest edge of the shell's lip. It was a subtle effect, one that she would never have noticed if she hadn't been scouring the sea bed so intently, but it stood out now that she had noticed.

She swam over to the clam and started examining. At first touch, she could feel the faintest taste of Celestial magic. That was all it took for her to begin trying everything she could to pry the bivalve open, but her breath had run out, and it was obvious that her bare hands were not going to be enough.

Carefully memorizing the area around the clam, Lucy made her way to the surface to catch a breath. While she was there, she touched Loke's key, silently asking him to come through his gate on his own power. The lion spirit wasted no time coming to her call, and the two of them quickly dove back down to their target.

All was going slow but well in their attempts to pry the shell open until Loke had the bright idea, pun intended, of hitting the clam with his Regulus Impact.

It turned out that the clam wasn't just an oddly colored clam, but a giant clam monster buried mostly beneath the surface, and the clam part was just its head. And now it was angry.

Lucy leveled both it and her spirit with a deadpan, longsuffering expression.

"Of course it couldn't be simple," she thought with an internal sigh. "When have I ever been on a quest where things were easy?"

She brought out her whip, and Loke lit up his fists. It was time to fight.

UUUUUUUUUU

As much as he hated to admit it, Natsu begrudgingly conceded that Erza was right about grabbing a meal.

The four of them sat at the restaurant where Lucy had treated him to lunch so long ago, and Natsu was chowing down like his life depended on it. In a way, it did. He needed the food to enable his body to find Lucy, and she was pretty much his life. The others, except Happy, had long finished their meals, but Natsu was still plowing through plate after plate. He had gone a long time, for him, without eating, and his high burning metabolism demanded refueling. He had been so single minded on finding Lucy and on the knowledge provided by Loke that he had forgotten about food.

Even as he ate, he still thought about Lucy and catching her trail. When they arrived at the restaurant, he had caught a whiff of her scent, but dismissed it since it was older than what he found at the harbor. There was no use in chasing stale smells.

Natsu was nearly finished with his last plate and ready to get back on the hunt when the team noticed massive commotion outside. They all looked at each other and nodded before throwing down money for their bill and running out the door.

People were screaming and running from the direction of the harbor. The place he had last smelled Lucy.

Before Natsu could get his head together enough to do it himself, Gray grabbed one of the running citizen.

"What the hell's going on?" Gray demanded of the quivering man.  
"There's a monster at the harbor," he panted. "Some blonde girl with a whip and a man in a suit are fighting it."

Natsu didn't wait for more. He was already running as fast as his legs could take him to the harbor. To Lucy.

UUUUUUUUUU

Lucy scrambled through the back alley still clad in her white and pink bikini and nothing else. After she and Loke had defeated the annoying, but not super strong monster, she had heard the all too familiar cries about the amount of damage. She took one look around at the big mess the fight had caused, and made a run for it. Loke vanished back into the Celestial Spirit realm, and she ran through any side streets she could to avoid getting arrested, or worse, billed for the damages.

"Guess that's one part of Fairy Tail that sticks with you for a while," she murmured to herself, resignation heavy in her quiet voice.

She looked down at the glinting gold prize in her left hand. Aquarius's formerly lost key.

"It was worth dealing with that gross and smelly clam to get you back."

Lucy was very tempted to go ahead and summon her old spirit and reforge their contract despite her bikini clad state in the middle of an alley, but a quick check on her magic reserves and her bruised body let her know that was out of the question. She needed some rest before being able to summon another Zodiac after all of the summonings she did that day searching.

She put her free hand on Virgo's key to signal to the maid spirit to come to Lucy under her own power. Virgo appeared as promptly as always. True to form, the loyal spirit came with new clothes in hand. She always had a knack for anticipating whatever Lucy needed.

Minutes later, fully clothes and looking much more tidy, Lucy left the alley to secure a room at one of the local inns.

She was more than a little tempted to go ahead and call it a night, but her stomach growled loudly in protest. All of that swimming and then the monster had guaranteed a hearty appetite.

She made sure everything in her room was secure. Then, making extra sure that Aquarius's key was securely in its proper place on her key ring, she went out to find a restaurant and some dinner.

UUUUUUUUUUUU

Too late. He was too late by mere minutes, according to several of the people gathered at the beach. While Natsu was happily impressed by the destruction Lucy had left behind during her fight, he was more disappointed that he had both missed her and missed seeing her kick ass. He loved watching her wipe the floor with opponents. It got his fiery dragon blood pumping, and if he were honest, it appealed to his demon blood as well.

He shook his head to clear those thoughts. There would be plenty of time for that after he caught her. Being distracted on his hunt was not an option.

Erza and Gray caught up a few minutes later while he was still trying to pinpoint where her scent left the harbor. He absently noted that Erza was much more out of breath than she should have been, but pushed it to the back of his mind.

"Was it her, Natsu?"

"Without a doubt," he answered the swordswoman. "Her scent is here. I'm just trying to find where she went after the fight."

"That dog nose of yours will find the trail for sure."

Natsu sent a baleful glare over his shoulder at Gray, but didn't pause his efforts to find Lucy's distinct scent.

There!

Natsu's sharp eyes rounded in excitement as he found her scent, and it was fresh.

"I've got it!"

Natsu ran after the trail, wearing through the back alleys with Gray, Erza, and Happy following close behind. It took them what felt like an hour, but was in reality only minutes, to chase the ghost of Lucy's scent all the way to a small, unassuming inn.

Natsu's smile was nearly splitting his face, but he couldn't help it as he chased the trail into the front lobby of the inn. He glanced back to see that the rest of the team were not without grins as well, only theirs weren't quite as big as his.

The dragon demon walked up to the front desk and rang the bell. In moments, a tiny old woman almost as small as the Master and with glasses nearly as large as her whole head was standing on the wood of the desk giving him a grandmotherly smile.

"Can I help you, young man?"

"Yes," he asked happily. "I'm looking for a blonde girl with really big boobs." Erza face palmed beside him as he made hand gestures to show Lucy's breast size.

"I'm sorry, but she already left." The old woman must have noticed how badly the groups faces fell, especially Natsu's, because her eyes softened. "But she just went out to eat. She'll be back when she's done."

Natsu brightened up again. He was so close. His fist hit his palm as a brilliant idea took hold.

He turned to Erza, Gray, and Happy.

"I'm going to need you all to make yourselves scarce for a while."

UUUUUUUUUUUU

Lucy tiredly trudged her way back to the inn. It was mildly frustrating to her to be so tired even though she had accomplished her primary goal. She had only fought that one monster. To her credit, she fought it after actively using magic for a considerable chunk of the day and had multiple gates open at the same time. All she wanted to do now that her belly was full was to get a good night's rest and restore her contract with the tempermental mermaid spirit in the morning.

She slowly climbed the stairs and fumbled with the door to her room. The room was dark as she closed the door behind her, showing how late it had become while she was out. She flipped on the lacrima light.

"Hey, Lucy!"

"Kyaaaaaaaaa!"

uuuuuuuu

 _And here is the chapter I promised. Nothing but the very last scene of this appeared in the original version of this story, so it's almost all new content. I'll be honest. The only reason it's out is because it was mostly already written a while back. I've caught a nasty cold. Working outside in damp weather and no sleep caught up to me. The kids are taking full advantage and have gone feral. So I haven't been online at all until a few minutes ago to upload this. Anyone who is still waiting for me to reply to reviews and messages, I hope you don't mind waiting until I'm better and not trying to keep the kids from destroying the house and killing each other. Having a cold plus screaming kids equals nearly no brain function. -_-_

 _Small notes: No one has noticed the major sub plot yet._

 _I headcanon that Natsu gets weaker like a Saiyan when he's too hungry._

 _Did I succeed in yanking you back and forth with wondering if they were going to meet again or not?_

 _Time for my cold meds. I'm hyper sensitive to meds, so I'm pretty much going to be out of it for the next half day. Thank God for inlaws coming to help with the kids. Lol I hope you enjoyed the chapter!_


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